Hisssssssssssss!! The angry sound of a puncture. Don't let it ruin your ride and don't waste money on a guy from Halfords to change your inner tube either. In this blog article, we'll be looking at puncture repair for bike inner tubes: the motivation, some tips and general installation instruction.
Hiss Bang Groan
Firstly, you need to identify the type of puncture you've got and this will allow you to tailor you approach to the repair of the puncture. A low hissing sound implies a snakebite or pinch puncture. This is a puncture which will slowly bleed out the air from your tyre and will have two small holes in the inneer tube. This is more minor damage and you may even be able to
ride home on such a puncture so you can fix it there more easily. A fast, loud bang is a rupture and is more serious. It implies a blowout of your tyre and may mean that you can't fix the puncture by the roadside.
Getting started
So you've identified your puncture and which wheel of your bike is afflicted. What now? Well,
firstly, you want a set of spoons, also known as tyre levers (not the eating iron variety). These should ideally made of tough plastic and are available from online stores such as Chain Reaction Cycles and Ribble cycles. Chain Reaction has free delivery on all purchases so it's worth giving them a look.
Use the more spoon-like end of the tyre lever to lift the rim of the tyre over the wheel rim. You may want to use 3 tyre levers for this to lift the tyre off the rim all the way round one side of the wheel.
Now pull out the inner tube. It's as the name suggests, a rubber tube, usually black and it sits under the tyre in the wheel rim. If you have a minipump to hand, pump some air into the inner tube and listen all around the tube for a hissing if you cannot already see the puncture. Many pinpoint punctures are very difficult to see so hearing and the feel of the airflow against the finger tips can help you locate the puncture.
After finding the puncture, use a puncture repair kit. My favourite at the moment is the Rema TIP TOP TT04 Sport mini puncture repair kit (~£3.50 Chain Reaction Cycles). It comes with little patches for little punctures and a couple of larger patches to cover more substantial damage. It also comes with some vulcanising solution (rubber glue) and a piece of sandpaper to help adhesion between the patch and the tube.
following the instructions in the package, lightly sand the tube to rough up the surface to help the patch stick. apply a blob of vulcanising solution. Then apply the patch and hold strongly for about 5 minutes while the glue sets.
Now put a little air into the tube to check for additional punctures. If there are none, seat the inner tube back into the tyre, making sure to seat the air inlet pokes through the hole in the rim. Now, using your hands, lift the rim of the tyre back over the rim of the wheel. Don't be tempted to use the tyre levers to lift the tyre back into place as this risks pinching the inner tube and ruining all your hard work as you'll need to repeat the above steps. Don't worry if it takes a while or you think you're doing it wrong. This is the most difficult part of the repair as anyone aside from a repair shop man will probably not have the grip strength needed to do it all in one go. Just take your time and make sure you don't catch the tube between the rim and the tyre as
more damage will ensue.
After all that, good luck. Let me know if there's anything I missed :)
